Refugees and migrants arrive on Eftalou beach, west of the port of Mytilene, on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on September 21, 2015. Europe's migrant crisis took centre-stage at the UN human rights council, as European states said the need to end the conflict in Syria was at an all-time high.IAKOVOS HATZISTAVROU / AFP/Getty Images

A Syrian peace initiative backed by civil-society organizations representing nearly 250 million people around the world is calling on Canada to lead an initiative to clear the Syrian skies of Bashar al-Assad’s bombers – the cause of more than 96 per cent of the civilian deaths in Syria, and the primary driver of the Syrian refugee crisis.

“A country like Canada is perfectly suited for this, and this has to happen right now,” Anna Nolan, an organizer with The Syria Campaign in New York, said Sunday. “Canada is playing a key role in the coalition [targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], but the coalition isn’t dealing with the main source of the problem. Assad’s barrel bombs have been killing seven times more Syrians than anyone else. Canada should step up.”

The Syria Campaign has been hoping for a NATO country participating in U.S. President Barack Obama’s air-strikes coalition to provide urgent and immediate backing for the no-fly zone being advocated by dozens of Syrian non-combatant organizations.

The appeal began with 277 activists from scores of Syrian civil-society groups, including the field hospital volunteers with the Syrian Civil Defence organization (the “White Helmets”), the Kurdish Women’s Union, the Christian Assyrian Coordination Committees, and the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

The Syrian refugee crisis has sparked a dramatic upsurge in the campaign. Apart from more than 106,000 signatures on petitions, the cause has been taken up by dozens of human rights groups around the world.

A leading Canadian backer of the “global citizens diplomacy” initiative is the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. Kyle Matthews, the Institute’s senior deputy director, says Canada is uniquely situated to seize the opportunity that the Syrian refugee crisis has forced upon the world, and Canada should act, now.

“The time has come for this conflict to stop,” Matthews said Sunday. “Canada dreamed big in the last century. Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Prize for ending the Suez Crisis. There is no reason why Canada can’t step up to the plate right now and be the voice for the millions of Syrians who are literally trapped in hell.”

Canada is already participating in the U.S.-led anti-ISIL airstrikes campaign and Conservative leader Stephen Harper prides himself on a foreign policy that refuses to “go along to get along.” The Liberals routinely point out that Canada can “punch above its weight” in the world and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has voiced his commitment to a more comprehensive, multilateral engagement in the Syrian crisis. The New Democrats insist that the anti-ISIL campaign is wholly insufficient to addressing the root causes of the Syrian meltdown.

“Canada is well placed to be the country that begins to think big and mobilizes others to join it in finding innovative solutions to protect Syrians, right now,” Matthews said. “The carnage and displacement we are seeing in Syria will not magically come to an end. Leadership is needed to bring countries together in an urgent manner to stop Assad’s bombs. Thousands of peaceful civilians are being murdered, week after week.”

The Syria Campaign’s Nolan said an air-power enforcement of a no fly zone in Syria may not even be necessary, and contrary to common misconceptions, a grounding of Assad’s barrel bombers would not mean an inevitable standoff with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has recently bolstered his armoury of fighter jets, helicopters and surface-to air missile platforms to back the Assad regime in Damascus.

Russia has blocked several UN Security Council resolutions aimed at ending the Syrian bloodletting, but even Putin signed on to the UNSC’s February 2014 Resolution 2139, which demands an immediate cessation of “shelling and aerial bombardment, such as the use of barrel bombs” in Syria.

Putin is hoping to re-establish relations with the NATO powers after the debacle of his annexation of Crimea and his proxy war in Eastern Ukraine. The Obama administration has refused to take the initiative for fear of antagonizing his Iranian nuclear-deal partners, who have been supplying Assad with arms, money, and soldiers.

What has been missing is a NATO country willing to step up to break the logjam and take the lead in forging a resolve within NATO – Turkey, a key NATO member, is already actively lobbying for a no fly zone – for Assad’s immediate compliance with UNSC Resolution 2139, and peace talks can follow. Canada should be that NATO country, Nolan said.

Matthews said that at a bare minimum Canada should “invoke the Responsibility to Protect and begin building the international political will among like-minded nations to establish humanitarian safe zones within Syria.”

Faisal Alazem of the Syrian Canadian Council agrees.

“It is great that Canadians have finally started talking about refugees, but we have not heard anyone from any of the three parties talking about why all these Syrians are fleeing, and where the refugees are coming from,” Alazem said.

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